


The Black Casino

by zorotokon



Category: Pack Street - Fandom, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Film Noir, Gen, Minor Avo, Minor Depictions of Suffering, Minor Ozzy, Private Investigators, TT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 20:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zorotokon/pseuds/zorotokon
Summary: In the city of Zootopia, an animal can disappear without a trace in a moment. These days, the cops won’t even try to find your loved ones - not since the mobs started paying them off. Only citizens can protect each other now, and that means turning to the private sector. In the hellhole that is Zootopia, where can you go when you’re out of luck, but you’ve got just enough money and desperation to bet it all on a pair of twos? Only one place: Anneke and Wolter Aardwolf Investigations. It was this promise of one last final fling that brought a certain hornless ram to their door.





	The Black Casino

Rain and blood – you can’t walk a block in this damn city without stepping in a puddle of at least one. Then the murders began. It started with a couple of prostitutes out by Flock Street. They were street trash, so no one looked twice. Then a pretty girl in a Cadillac got her throat slashed and the media circus began its usual song and dance. The ringmaster? A fucked up jackal in royal black with an Anubis fetish me and my brother liked to call the Whore of Zoobylon.

My brother Wolt and I were enjoying our coffee hot enough to melt steel when she started flashing the gruesome pictures again. Disgusting, but you do your job. Part that made us hate her was how much she enjoyed it, her insane grin widening with each blood-soaked picture. That’s the media for you, all heart, so long as it’s been stabbed.

Anneke and Wolter Aardwolf Investigations, the only twins in the city who’ll take any case as long as you’re paying. We’ve done some things we regret, but who hasn’t in this old boot stew of a town?

Our office was half apartment, half storage unit, and had been since we moved in. Newspapers and case files covered every flat surface. All of the jobs were closed, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t be dicking around home base with our thumbs up our asses drinking coffee made with filters we snatched from dumpsters and admiring the cleavage of the news lady.

Money had been tight this month, but money was always tight. We just needed that one big break, but we always just needed that one big break. We’d just spend it on whiskey again. You’d think that animals were dying to get into Zootopia, well, we were rotting proof that the opposite was true too.

When you get as down on your luck as we were, even the roaches had to step over you.

We’ve eaten our fair share of bugs off the kitchen floor, and when this sheep walked in dressed like he was trying to personally bang every man from here to tundra town, I knew we were about to swallow one more. Wolt waved the sheep away with a half-filled mug. “We’re closed,” he said, then he got another look at the guy. “Well, maybe we can make an exception.”

“Oh, thank you,” the sheep spoke in a high falsetto that couldn’t have fooled a deaf-blind bat, “It’s about my man, he’s been missing, and with that killer on the loose-” he gave us a shudder, clearly looking for the Oscar already. “Oh, I simply tremble at the thought.”

“Honey,” Wolt’s skull mask looked as tired as I felt, but that didn’t stop him from ribbing the ram, “the only man you could get is one who shops in the discount section at their local Whoremart.” Our visitor rolled his eyes at the jab and lost all pretense of being a little lost lamb.

 “I am a lady of respect, and quality breeding,” the ram threw some serious sass into the words, “you couldn’t afford me even if I wanted you.”

Wolt threw up his paws in defeat, chuckling at some private pun at the “quality breeding” sheep before us. I took the reins of the conversation before Wolt could lose us another job. “How can we help you today sir, uh, ma’am?”

“Sir is fine,” he said, as he took the chair in front of our desk, only briefly stopping to push a stack of papers off of it. “Well, as I was saying before this lout interrupted,” he shot a look of disgust at Wolt, who returned it with a big toothy grin. “My man hasn’t come around to the house in four days, and I’m worried about him.”

I read between the lines. His pimp hadn’t come asking for his money in probably two weeks I’d wager. That meant he got to keep his money, but also he had no big strong man to hide behind when the drunks got violent.

How’d shit like this happen? He was a perfectly fine looking ram, even had all his teeth. I could only sit in disbelief as his story unfolded. He was born in Zootopia, and had a promising athletic career, before some bad decisions shoved him into the wrong crowd. It was probably mostly true, but he was caging all his words with careful prose. He was weaving us a yarn, which I guess sheep should be masters at.

Of course, he must have known that we didn’t believe a word of it. It was just an act, but you don’t dance the tango for the applause, and you don’t hire a whore for when she leaves. He could have been an actor, maybe not big screen stuff, but I’d watch him in a porno.

That’s what this town did to you. You came in all bright eyed and bushy tailed, and you end up walking the streets fearing for your life because the only man who cares whether you live or die only likes you for your ass and how much money it can make him. Make me sick just thinking about it.

Wolter always took the office work more seriously. He did the books, he took the notes, and he sent the bills. He was already busy scratching the details into his notepad. I wasn’t without my talents, though. I walked the streets at night, and smoked cigarettes in alleys I shouldn’t be in, and broke guy’s noses when they didn’t want to be my friends. We were all each other had, but that made us the best kind of team.

“I can pay you, of course,” the ram pulled out a roll of crinkled and stained notes from his purse, “just say the amount.”

“We find your man first,” I broke in, “then you pay us.”

“That excludes the deposit towards services, which will be fifty dollars,” Wolter said as he turned his carefully blank face towards me. His eyes were wide and his mouth was a hard line that spoke more about his feelings on the subject of charity than our mostly forged tax statements ever could.

The ram went to hand Wolter the money, but I just could not let this happen. “Maybe we can work something out,” I said, going around to be closer to the ram, “an exchange of services.”

The ram blushed, even under that cake of makeup he was baby-faced. I wanted to hold it, to get lost in his eyes. I wanted to take him away from here, to someplace better, someplace warm, someplace where we didn’t have to live like this. Someplace like between my thighs.

“I’d rather just pay right now,” he handed Wolter a wad of cash and stood up, bringing him so very close to me for just a second before he crept around my unmoving body towards the door. “I can show you where he was last, but that’s the only lead I’ve got.”

“We’ll take it.” Wolt joined me at the door and we threw on our matching trench coats and wide brimmed hats. Our pieces were already on us, of course, mine in my lower back, Wolt’s on his hip.

The ram lead us through a twisting tunnel of alleyways to a grey metal door in the side of a warehouse. The light above it flicked on and off in the rain, like a beacon of hope, that never stayed on for the second look. The door was designed for animal’s our size, perfect fit for either of us, but the ram would have to duck. Any larger and you couldn’t fit in at all. The sheep knocked, and we waited for an answer.

It was almost half a minute before a fox in a pinstripe suit opened the door. Her nose was covered in white fun dust, the same shit that’s been burning a hole in this city’s brain for thirty years.

“Remmy, Annie, Wolt,” she said, nodding to each of us in turn.

“How the fuck do you know our names?” I pulled my piece, a long black marvel that I’d nicknamed The Jackhammer after the rabbit who gave it to me. It made messes, sometimes bloody. It was a lot like me.

“Seen Marty?” the ram asked the fox, ignoring my question.

“Yeah, let me get him.”

The door slammed shut, and I glared around the alleyway. A bum hyena was slumped under a dumpster lid, another drowned corpse that couldn’t even make it to the trash for his grave.

The fox and this Marty fellow let us stew for nearly ten minutes. I was this close to breaking off the hinges when the door opened again, this time revealing a stoat in pinstripe suit and slacks. The scowl he wore and scar running down his face gave the impression of a man who doesn’t take kindly to strangers knocking on his door in the middle of the night, and that told me all I needed to know about how this conversation was going to go. I pointed to the ram. “You know this man?” The stoat nodded, pulling out a cigar. He bit the end off like a hunk of meat and spat it at our feet to mix with the other floaters in the gutter.

“Where’s the big guy then?” I asked. I didn’t want this to get rough, but, well, okay, I did. I liked rough. If I don’t roll out of bed with bruises and cuts the next day, the night’s not even worth having.

The stoat flicked the ash of his cigar at the ram, giving him a disgusted look, “You mean Al? I’m not his keeper.”

Wolter and I exchanged a dark look. We knew Al. Biggest and baddest motherfucker on this side of the city, but we didn’t know he kept sheep prostitutes. Now we do, thanks little guy.

“Surely you, his best friend, knows where he is,” prompted the ram, he was pulling at his clothes, flashing a lot of wool.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the stoat asked, his eyes filled with confusion. This was taking too long.

“Tell us where Al is or you’ll be telling Saint Bleater at the pearly gates!” I pulled my piece again and shoved all of its veiny 12 inches into the stoat’s face. He fell back and I bullied forward, knocking the door aside. The room beyond looked like a bookie den. The walls I could see were stacked high with novels, no doubt just covers hiding ledgers. But I was on a mission today, and that meant getting my man his man. “I’ll only warn you once, this has been inside me, and not the front entrance.”

The stoat gave me a horrified look, and blabbed his heart out, “He’s upstairs! He texted me earlier, asking if I wanted to catch the game later, I swear!”

“That’s better,” I backed off and let him get up.

“Now, you have any words of apology for our mutual friend here?” I said, indicating the ram.

The stoat slammed the door in answer. Heh, at least we had a lead.

Wolt gave me a nod, and I returned it. Without word he led the Ram down the block, turning at the first corner, where he would wait for me to catch up. The door had a peephole, and with a couple boxes on the ground, I could stare through it without having to sit directly in the puddle.

“Well that was fun,” said the fox, removing her suit. She was naked underneath, and I got enough of an eyeful for a couple nights before she disappeared beyond my vision.

This Marty fellow grabbed at his eyelids, practically clawing them off as he fell onto a couch. “I will never, EVER, be able to get the image of Remmy in that outfit out of my head.” Remmy, that’s what he’d called the sheep before. The bastard told us his name was Shawn. “When I die, it’s going to be on my tombstone, just a fucking marble statue of him in a tube top and booty shorts, dick practically poking me in the eye.” So, Remmy didn’t usually dress like a slut. This sort of dropped information was why I stayed behind and spyed.

He finally blew out his exasperation and stood, refreshing his cigar from a humidor on the table in the center of the room. “You know any good assassins? Our neighbor problem just got a lot bigger.”

“Oh,” the fox replied as she returned wrapped in a towel “I know a couple guys.”

“Very funny, Charlie.” Marty stared at Charlie, who gave no indication that she was joking.

I’d be back for them, one day. A bookie joint run by a nudist fox and an angry stoat, that sort of thing had to have some petty cash sitting around to wander off with. Besides, I’m pretty sure that was a death threat, which gives me probable cause. I’m not a cop, but I can sure break the law like one.

“What’d you find out?” Wolt asked me as I joined back up with him.

“Nothing much,” I said. Wolt very carefully didn’t reply, instead turning back up the street. Nothing much was our code word for ‘a goddamn gold mine.’ As we were walking downtown, I stole glimpses at the sheep who had hired us. He really didn’t look comfortable in the clothes he was wearing. His makeup was a mess, and his body had none of the telltale bruises or track marks of a street whore.

He wasn’t telling us something, but he had paid upfront, and we didn’t ask questions of customers.

The building the ram had led us to didn’t have an upstairs, so Marty must have been referring to Pack Street. You couldn’t get a seedier or more dangerous place if you sent a helicopter through a garden stand in May. Pack Street was where you went when you wanted to buy something to inject, smoke, or snort, and you didn’t care about how cut with turpentine it was. It was the armpit of a city made of assholes, and at its heart sat The Black Casino.

The Black Casino itself was a tenement building that had been condemned years ago for black mold, and only the truly desperate, or truly insane, shacked up there. Even the air was trying to kill you in the Black Casino, and the animals were worse. If Al was on Pack Street, he would be there. And if Al was trying to take over Pack Street, well, that just meant that the devil was waiting at the crossroads... and none of us knew how to play the fiddle.

Move fast, try not to breathe, and you’ll reach the top of that place before you know it. Only four stories up, but each one an epic of animal suffering.  You never do get used to stepping over a corpse, and here were two. The first had been done in by the mold, and was already fluffy with the stuff. The other was half bone, what flesh remained torn away in jagged strips. I didn’t want to say it, but those were teeth marks. We’d done jobs in places like this - hell, we used to live in a place like this.

There are always places in big cities that the man just forgets. Empty lots gone to fallow, skate parks that turn into mosquito nurseries, and sometimes even whole blocks that can just slip through the cracks. We passed open doors as we went, and I couldn’t stop myself looking inside. Here an opossum nursed two kids, her teats red and bleeding as her children suckled for the milk her emaciated form could not produce. There two junkies cuddled for warmth, one too high to realize the other had already left this world behind.

Homeless, hopeless, and kicked down by the world in a million different ways. This was the Black Casino.

I take it back. Hell had nothing on this.

“Al, I know you’re in there!” Wolter shouted as we reached the top. Two rooms up here: the first caved in to the floor beneath it, the second had a proper door. Not a tough decision.

The sound of moving furniture greeted us, plus the moans of some female. The ram balked away from the door, “Maybe this isn’t the best time to do this, guys,” the sheep was almost at the stairs before Wolt looped an arm around him, pulling him back. Nerves were twisting his face into a tightly stretched frown. His eyes darted everywhere but onto me. This was more just more shit on the suspicion cake. He should be angry to find his man mid-coitus with another, not want us to shove off.

Wolt voiced my concerns perfectly. “We had a deal, sheep. Not getting cold hoofs, are you?”

“The deal was I play along for an hour and you stop giving me crap about the sliders,” Remmy hissed back.

“Shut up, both of you,” I listened at the door. Whatever was going on in there, I didn’t like being out here with just my brother for backup. The sheep had been lying to us, that much was clear. Finding Al had been too easy. My gut told me something was rotten with this whole package, and I’m not about to stick my tongue in this pussy to find out what. I gave the sheep a glare and he was sweating like a stuck pig. Fucking hell, this whole thing was a setup, wasn’t it?

“Who’s waiting for us behind the door?” I whispered, “Twelve guys with machine guns? Gangbangers with Molotovs? Who sent you to bring us here?” He shrank away from me.

“I s-swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his voice and story were both cracking. Like hell he didn’t know what was going on.

“Well, if that’s true, then you won’t mind going first!” I shouted as I grabbed his arm and threw him into the door. The damn thing swung open as he collided with it, sending the sheep tottering into the room. My brother and I instinctively hit the deck when the ram hit the door.

Tense seconds went by as I waited for the hail of gunfire to tear a dozen new assholes in my body. When none came I crawled over to my brother, who signaled to book it. I gave him a quick nod, and we fled the scene.

I never did find out what happened to that ram, or Al, or that room at the top of the Black Casino on a rainy night in downtown Zootopia. Such is life. You live until fate decides you’re done, and you can only cheat her so many times.

 

**Sometime Later**

Al and V sat at opposite ends of the bed, both in quiet contemplation, and both unsure of how the fuck to respond to what had just happened.

“That was-” Al started.

“Weird,” V finished.

The silence continued. Annie, Wolt, and Remmy had come a’knocking, and both Al and V had ignored them to keep fucking on the couch. Which would have been fine normally, but apparently the door was unlocked. So when Wolter threw Remmy at it, he had burst in to get two good eyefuls of Al balls deep in V.

“Would you like to explain to me why you got tight when he saw us?” Al asked.

“No. Would YOU like to explain why you came when you saw he was wearing Annie’s clubbing outfit?” V responded.

Al could think of nothing but the image V's words had produced, and he had to cross his legs to hide his regrowing erection.

“No.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Swatanon for editing suggestions. Comicanon did a reading of this fic! Feel free to listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/comicanon/the-black-casino (now slightly outdated because I fixed some of the things he mentioned)


End file.
